The Lankavatara Sutra

by Red Pine

  246 Good roots (kushala-mula) produce good fruit (kushala phala). The “good fruit” of Buddhism is buddhahood. Thus, “good roots” include thoughts, words, or deeds of compassion and wisdom that give rise to such a fruit.

  247 This refers to the bodhisattva-pitaka, or those canonical texts of Mahayana Buddhism that extol the bodhisattva, who takes the vow to liberate all beings as the proper goal of practice, as opposed to the arhat, who seeks only to enter nirvana. When the Mahayana first developed, its supporters often felt obliged to defend the authenticity of its teachings.

  248 The vinaya refers to that part of the Buddhist canon that deals with moral discipline.

  249 Section XXIII. Resuming his review of the major teachings bodhisattvas were expected to understand, the Buddha introduces the three modes of reality, which he summarizes according to their relationships to the five dharmas. They are, after all, two different ways of looking at the same thing, namely, the world we perceive and think of as real: one based on projection, the other based on correct knowledge.

  250 The three modes of reality (tri-sva-bhava) include imagined reality, (parikalpita), dependent reality (paratantra), and perfected reality (parinishpanna). The three modes do not refer to separate realities. They simply represent the three ways we perceive what is real. In imagined reality, we mistakenly perceive things as separate from other things. In dependent reality, we correctly perceive things as dependent on other things, but we still perceive the world in terms of things which are themselves fictions. In perfected reality, we neither perceive nor do not perceive things, for things neither exist nor do not exist. In perfected reality, we dwell in the realm of the tathagata-garbha.

  251 Gunabhadra puts this question in Mahamati’s mouth, but it does better as a rhetorical question, which is how it appears in the translations of Bodhiruchi and Shikshananda and also in the Sanskrit.

  252 Gunabhadra reverses the order and attribution of “name” and “appearance,” apparently by mistake. I’ve gone along with Bodhiruchi, Shikshananda, and the Sanskrit texts in placing “appearance” first, followed by “name.”

  253 The “ground” of dependent reality is the eighth, or repository, consciousness, which supplies the “names.” The “objective support” includes the remaining seven forms of consciousness, including the five sensory-based forms of consciousness, which supply the “appearances.” The Sanskrit for “ground” is ashraya and for “objective support” is alambana.

  254 The tathagata–garbha, or womb of buddhas, is the name applied to the repository consciousness when it is transformed.

  255 Gunabhadra and Shikshananda render this verse with four-character lines, instead of the usual five-character lines.

  256 The relationship between the five dharmas and the three modes of reality, as described in the above verse and elsewhere in this sutra, connects name and appearance to imagined reality, projection to dependent reality, and true knowledge and suchness to perfected reality. For more on these, see Sections LXXXIII & LXXXIV

  257 The reference here is to perfected reality. It should be noted, however, that elsewhere (at the end of the third paragraph in the next section, for example) the Buddha says that personal realization involves transcending the five dharmas and the three modes of reality, which would include the perfected mode as well.

  258 Section XXIV. The Buddha completes his review of the major teachings in which bodhisattvas are expected to be versed with the two kinds of no-self. The skandhas, dhatus, and ayatanas are simply different ways of breaking down one’s experience of awareness in search of a self. The skandhas include the external world of form and the internal worlds of sensation, perception, memory, and consciousness. The dhatus include the six powers of sensation, the six domains of sensation, and the six forms of consciousness that arise upon their conjunction. The ayatanas include only the six powers and six domains. Not only does the Buddha deny the existence of anything permanent among such dharmas as the skandhas, he also denies that the skandhas, or anything else, are themselves permanent, or “self-existent.”

  259 Other paths located the self in the skandha of consciousness and what belongs to the self among the remaining four skandhas.

  260 I’ve followed Bodhiruchi who is somewhat clearer in his reading of garbha as referring to “house” than Gunabhadra. Shikshananda reads this as referring to the repository consciousness, as does Suzuki.

  261 The Sanskrit is niriha, which means “indifferent.” This term is absent in Bodhiruchi’s translation, but Shikshananda translates it wu-neng-tso (no ability to create).

  262 The attribution of individual or shared characteristics was often used as a way of slipping in a self through the back door.

  263 In the previous section, we were told that personal realization of buddha knowledge takes place in the realm of perfected reality. Here, we learn that this, too, is merely another way of looking at things and that one must leave this behind as well.

  264 I read this as referring to the eighth stage of the bodhisattva path, which is marked by freedom from projections and which is where shravakas and bodhisattvas usually part company. If the eighth stage is the initial stage of the bodhisattva path, then the ninth stage would be its final stage, as the Buddha says here that bodhisattvas who reach the tenth stage have “gone beyond the bodhisattva stage.”

  265 The ninth stage is called the good wisdom stage, and the tenth stage is called the dharma cloud stage. They are traditionally listed as the last two stages of the bodhisattva path.

  266 A monarch with universal dominion.

  267 Section XXV. This section follows from the previous one and examines the four aspects from which a self can be postulated to exist or not to exist. The Buddha rejects both sides of this issue. This is because the aspects that are asserted or denied neither exist nor do not exist. They exist as words, as concepts, but not as anything real.

  268 Gunabhadra, Shikshananda, and the Sanskrit all render this in six lines, while Bodhiruchi has it in four lines.

  269 Comparing similarities and differences is the means whereby individual or shared characteristics are determined.

  270 Assertions of characteristics are usually associated with the vaishe shikas, and assertions of views with the Sarvastivadins.

  271 Everything arises due to the repository consciousness. Thus, everything arises from delusions, not causes and conditions.

  272 The division of our experience into dharmas, and thus the creation of the Abhidharma, or Study of Dharmas, began shortly after the Buddha’s Nirvana. According to this scheme, these entities of the mind were either created or conditioned, that is, dependent on other dharmas for their existence, or they were uncreated. Space, two kinds of cessation, and nirvana were the only dharmas that qualified as uncreated or unconditioned according to the sects.

  273 Strands of hair before the eyes usually refer to what we call “floaters” on the surface of the eye.

  274 Assertions of cause and of existence were made by Hinayana sects, whereby the assertion of cause concerned practice and the assertion of existence concerned its fruit. For Hinayana sects, space, cessation, and nirvana were viewed as goals of practice.

  275 Section XXVI. Having mastered the preceding teachings, bodhisattvas now go beyond the eighth stage and begin their own careers as teachers of the Dharma, in particular the Dharma as taught by this sutra. The emphasis here is not on what bodhisattvas attain but on what they do to help others.

  276 The point seems to be that they adjust their appearance to the needs of those they would teach.

  277 The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, or community of practitioners.

  278 Gunabhadra renders this in four-character lines, rather than his standard five-character lines.

  279 Section XXVII. The Buddha now examines the basic teachings common to all sects of Mahayana Buddhism, beginning with emptiness. But as he says here, “Mahamati, it is because people are attached to an imagined reality that we speak of emptiness.” The same
holds for the other teachings covered here: non-arising, non-duality, and the absence of self-existence. Thus, at the end of this section, he advises his followers to trust truth and not words, including words such as “emptiness.”

  280 At the heart of Mahamati’s question is whether these teachings by negation do not lead to nothingness instead of to the somethingness of enlightenment.

  281 If it weren’t for deluded people, there would be no buddhas.

  282 The Buddha uses the word “briefly” here because in other sutras he lists as many as twenty kinds of emptiness.

  283 The term paraspara means reciprocal but, like anyonya, it also means contrasting, which is how I read it here. It is contrast and combination (samuha) that establish individual or shared characteristics.

  284 Phenomena (pracarita) refer to conditioned, or created, dharmas, such as the skandhas, while non-phenomena (apracarita) refer to unconditioned, or uncreated, dharmas, such as space, cessation, and nirvana.

  285 Bodhiruchi, Shikshananda, and the Sanskrit have variations of: “By the emptiness of non-phenomena is meant that the skandhas are in nirvana and devoid of phenomena.”

  286 The Sanskrit is nir-abhilapya.

  287 The Sanskrit is paramartha-aryajnana-mahashunyata. To this, Gunabhadra adds “of all things” (yi-ch’ieh-fa), both here and at the end of this paragraph, but this is not supported by Bodhiruchi, Shikshananda, or the Sanskrit, and I have omitted it as extraneous.

  288 Although the previous forms of emptiness were used by various Buddhist sects, the emptiness of mutual exclusion was limited to logicians of heterodox sects. The example the Buddha uses here refers to a vihara, or retreat center, donated by one of his disciples, a woman known as Mrigaramatri (the mother of Mrigara). Because she wanted to show her respect for the three treasures, she donated a large piece of land northeast of Shravasti and built a residence for a thousand monks for their use during the rainy season. To insure its cleanliness, animals were not allowed within the compound. In the Small Sutra on Emptiness, which is part of the Madhyamagama, the Buddha uses the example of this vihara to show the absurdity of the conception of emptiness held by heterodox practitioners, whereby something was said not to be empty if it was not present.

  289 This is the crudest kind of emptiness because it merely excludes this from that, it does not lead practitioners to an understanding of the other kinds of emptiness listed here, much less to an understanding of non-arising, non-duality, or the absence of self-existence.

  290 Hinayana practice focuses on the cultivation of samadhis that involve the cessation of thought and thus the non-arising of thought. Here, non-arising doesn’t refer to the non-arising of thought but to the non-arising of anything that can be identified as separate from the causes and conditions by means of which we say it arises. But saying that something arises does not mean there is something that exists apart from causes and conditions. Arising and non-arising are both fictions.

  291 If one thing cannot be established, how can we possibly establish two things?

  292 Most Chinese commentators take these three as examples of how we discriminate the day. Like samsara and nirvana, they are neither inside nor outside of each other, nor are they identical to each other. They are mutually exclusive and merely erroneous projections.

  293 Shikshananda has, “They only exist relative to each other and cannot exist alone. Outside of samsara there is no nirvana. And outside of nirvana there is no samsara. Samsara and nirvana are not separate. And as with samsara and nirvana, the same is true of everything else. This is what is meant by non-dual.”

  294 Section XXVIII. Previously, Mahamati wonders if the Buddha’s teaching is not nihilistic, now he wonders if the Buddha’s teaching is not eternalistic, and if the teaching of the tathagata-garbha does not run counter to the foregoing teachings of emptiness, non-arising, and no self. The Buddha explains how the tathagata-garbha is not the same as a self but rather an expedient means used to attract those who cling to a self by providing something less frightening than no self.

  295 In this sutra, the tathagata-garbha (womb of buddhas) is treated as the same as the alaya-vijnana (repository consciousness), two sides of the same coin. Elsewhere, it is linked with the dharma body: hidden, it’s the tathagata-garbha, visible, it’s the dharma body.

  296 The bodies of all buddhas are said to be marked by thirty-two physical attributes, such as long arms and long earlobes, webbed fingers and toes, a swastika in the middle of the chest, a curl between the brows, and eyes the shape of a crescent moon. In the case of the tathagata-garbha, however, physical attributes no longer apply, and a series of epithets are used instead, such as emptiness, etc.

  297 This is one of nine similes used in the Tathagatagarbha Sutra. Others liken the tathagata-garbha to gold in a mine or seeds in a flower.

  298 These are also known as the three poisons.

  299 The Buddha varies his description of the tathagata-garbha depending on the attachments of his audience. For those attached to existence, the tathagata-garbha is empty, formless, or intentionless. For those attached to nonexistence, the tathagata-garbha is the realm of reality, the dharma nature, or the dharma body. For those attached to existence and nonexistence, it is nirvana, the absence of self-existence, or what neither arises nor ceases. And for those attached to neither existence nor nonexistence, it is original quiescence or intrinsic nirvana.

  300 The gate of threefold liberation includes emptiness, formlessness, and intentionlessness. As the Buddha notes earlier in this section, these are also other names for the tathagata-garbha.

  301 The Sanskrit is tathagata-nairatmya-garbha.

  302 Section XXIX. Short though this section is, the Buddha manages to list the major conceptions of a self held by other paths: something that continues from one life to the next, something that results from a combination of matter and conditions, or something created by an outside force, all of which are nothing more than fictions.

  303 Gunabhadra alone renders this in four-character lines.

  304 Section XXX. These are the highlights of the bodhisattva path leading to the tathagata-garbha, beginning with seeing that there is nothing to see other than one’s own mind (sva-citta-drshya-matra) and concluding with the personal realization of what buddhas know (sva-pratyatma-arya-jnana), to which is added the means to teach such realization to others.

  305 The practices of realization (yoga-abhisamaya) recall the bodhisattva’s lineage of realization (abhisamaya-gotra) in Section XX.

  306 Sanskrit texts have abhilashanata (desiring), which is reflected in Shikshananda’s translation. However, both Bodhiruchi and Gunabhadra have le (delighting).

  307 Although these four practices are usually interpreted as sequential, they are also viewed as simultaneous, as becoming aware of one’s own mind necessarily entails transcending limitations of space and time and experiencing what can only be experienced by oneself.

  308 Gunabhadra repeats this sentence a second time in slightly altered form. I’ve followed Bodhiruchi and Shikshananda, neither of whom includes the repetition.

  309 This paragraph is rendered quite differently by each translator. As elsewhere, I’ve followed Gunabhadra.

  310 This unusual term (mano-maya-kaya) is further explained in Section LVII, where three projection bodies are mentioned: one acquired during the third, fourth, or fifth stages of the bodhisattva path, one at the eighth stage, and one beyond the eighth stage, apparently at the tenth stage.

  311 Gunabhadra omits “Mahamati asked the Buddha,” but this is present in Bodhiruchi, Shikshananda, and the Sanskrit. Hence, I have added it. I’ve also followed Bodhiruchi, Shikshananda, and the Sanskrit for Mahamati’s question. Gunabhadra has: “What is the reason for the projection body?”

  312 Section XXXI. It was the understanding of causation that formed the basis of the Buddha’s own Enlightenment. Mahamati, too, seeks to understand causation. However, from the point of view in this sutra, cause and effect are considered in terms of the
ir origin as projections, not in terms of whether one exists or not or what their temporal or spatial relationship might be.

  313 The question revolves around this issue: does the effect exist in the cause (simultaneous) or are they separate (sequential)? The Sanskrit terms are krama (sequential) and yugapat (simultaneous). Mahamati’s question anticipates the Buddha’s answers.

  314 External conditions make up the world in which most people live, while they remain unaware that what exists in that world and what causes it to exist are merely perceptions of their own mind. Internal conditions constitute the world of Hinayana practitioners (the “foolish people” here), unaware that what exists and what causes it to exist are merely perceptions of their own mind. Internal conditions are usually encompassed by the five skandhas or the twelve links of dependent origination, beginning with ignorance and karma (memory) and ending with illness, old age, and death.

  315 The subject of causality and different lists of causes fill the texts of every Buddhist sect. This particular list is apparently unique to this sutra.

  316 Referring to the latent habit-energy of the repository consciousness.

  317 Yin-shun gives the example of the sun. After it goes down, it is the inactive cause of its reappearance.

  318 This set of four causes, which considers causation from the point of view of the effect, is common to early Hinayana texts.

  319 All three Chinese translations and the Sanskrit render this verse in six lines.

  320 Section XXXII. Mahamati’s question here arises from the last line in the previous section, where the Buddha says, “Nothing exists at all / and these are nothing but words.” So how are we to understand words, and where do they come from? The Buddha says that words are based on projections, and projections are a falsification of reality. Hence, to know the truth behind words requires seeing through the falsehood of projection.

  321 The Sanskrit for “words” and “what they express” are abhilapa (expression) and abhilapya (expressed). These are the two kinds of truth (artha), the validity of which the Buddha denies in the next section.